Our ETS Future 'Will Not Come Cheaply

AUSTRALIA will be unable to produce affordable baseload power supplies while meeting its emissions targets under present policy, new research has found.

A study by Melbourne's Grattan Institute, to be published today, warns that while carbon pricing will help make low-emissions technologies competitive, it will not be enough without big structural and policy changes.

Tony Wood, the institute's energy program director, says governments face "an acute intellectual and policy challenge" steering a course between inadequate support for low-emissions technologies or unduly favouring one technology over another. He cautions "Australia's move to a low-carbon future will be too expensive unless they do."

The Grattan research stresses markets as the primary mechanism by which Australia can reduce its emissions, but it says markets cannot work properly unless governments optimise regulatory and policy frameworks.

The study also warns against letting ideology limit the scope for manoeuvre by preventing serious evaluation of carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy. "A range of technologies available today can generate electricity at or below 0.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour and have significant scale-up projection," the Grattan research finds.

"Yet none currently represents more than 2 per cent of Australia's electricity supply and

their future technical and economic potential is shrouded in uncertainty."

The report finds further refinement of the underlying technologies of low-emission energy options will be the most important tool for their future development and commercialisation.

It reminds governments of their roles overseeing the development of new transmission networks and pipelines, resource maps, market frameworks, regulations and engineering skills.

The Grattan researchers urge the commonwealth to ensure the carbon pricing scheme works properly by setting long-term emission caps and call on all governments to act to ensure there is a level playing field for all power-generating technologies.

The report's authors urge the removal of obstacles that impede technologies such as wind and geothermal from connecting at large-scale to electricity grids built around the needs of very large fossil-fuel plants.

Carbon trading has its risks including fraud, warn experts

CARBON trading experts say there is potential for fraud in the global market, but checks and balances are improving.

Under the government's carbon pricing plan announced on Sunday, more than half of the emissions abatement to 2020 will come from companies buying it from overseas, at an estimated cost of $3 billion, with the remainder coming from Australian carbon farming and other initiatives.

A new body called the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) will determine companies' carbon price liabilities and operate the national register of emissions units, and work alongside the Climate Change Authority headed by former Reserve Bank chief Bernie Fraser.

Already more than 30 Australian-based brokers and companies, such as the Commonwealth Bank and Origin Energy Electricity, are registered with the CER.

But the fledgling global carbon trade has seen its share of fraud and corruption, with such problems as companies buying into non-existent forests or renewable energy projects that don't get off the ground.

The Australian Federal Police also will have a role in investigating allegations of fraud or corruption.

GreenCollar Group chief James Schultz, who advises companies on carbon trading, told AAP much had been learned in the past decade.

"Rigour is important," he said.

"One of the lessons is the need for the market to understand what they are buying.

"It takes a while to be sophisticated about what is a shonky product - like a tree plantation that doesn't exist - versus something that has been rigorously audited."

While the details of the Australian system were yet to be fully spelled out, he expected it would be consistent with "international norms".

"Audit is an essential part of the process. You need a national standard, which at the moment is the Kyoto protocol," Schultz says.

"The carbon farming initiative is another standard.

"Auditors say: 'Have you adhered to the standard, have you told us the truth?' And if all those things stack up then you now have a climate change benefit."

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce, who opposes the system, says despite $382 million being spent on a new climate change bureaucracy there were bound to be rorts as $3 billion went overseas on abatement.

"(It's) like those dodgy emails you get from the West African coast, only your government will actually start replying to them with your nation's bank account details," he said.

Taxpayers' money would be "cast like confetti around the world".

But Treasurer Wayne Swan says Australian governance arrangements will be effective.

"We're setting up a whole series of arrangements in our Climate Change Authority to make sure that governance is first class and world class," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott earlier this month told an industry forum that a "dependable carbon cop" would be needed if the scheme was to have any credibility.

The Australian Federal Police has been examining the issue since an ETS was first raised as a serious proposal four years ago.

Former AFP chief Mick Keelty told a forum at that time that any carbon trading scheme had the potential to be undermined by "corruption or fraud".

In April 2010, AFP deputy commissioner for national security, Peter Drennan, said carbon trading "may in time provide opportunities for organised criminal syndicates to exploit new markets and engage in fraudulent activity".

An AFP spokesman told AAP this week the final design of the scheme's governance was still being developed by the climate change department.

"The AFP has commonwealth responsibilities in relation to the investigation of serious fraud in government programs and in addressing organised crime," the spokesman said.

"It is too early to speculate on any potential criminal risks or the size and impact of any obligations for the AFP.

"However, the AFP will work closely with the relevant agencies ... to address identified risks, enhance the scheme's overall integrity, and manage any law enforcement resourcing impacts."

GreenCollar chief Schultz said carbon trading was becoming like buying any other commodity, but some companies will find that investing in Australian-based abatement projects, such as forests and farms that cut their use of fertilisers, is better than looking overseas.

"Some product is cheaper than others and some has a higher or lower risk profile than others," he said.

"There is significant upside for companies that are able to invest directly into the primary market - companies that create credit, create the project itself as opposed to buying on the secondary market, which is cheaper but has a higher risk."

Schultz said the public could trust the auditing system as "these are the same people who tell you ships won't sink and planes won't fall out of the sky".

"The same level of audit is brought to this, and in fact it is more rigorous," he said.

The public concern was driven largely because in many cases "you are trading something that didn't happen", Schultz says.

"Most of what you are trading is an avoided emission. You are trading something that didn't happen, like stopping deforestation. It's not planting trees but has a great impact," he said.

"By not chopping down a forest that is however many millions of tonnes of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere and that compensates another activity."

Suffocating the Economy One Tax at a Time

If implemented, Julia Gillard's proposed carbon price starting at $23 per tonne will push us closer to economic stagnation.

If the Government wanted to make the 159 million tonnes saving in 2020 it seeks, it would not attempt to do this with a domestic tax. According to the Government's Securing a Clean Future report, half of the saved emissions are domestically derived.

If the price is $30 per tonne this will involve an annual cost of $2.385 billion incurred in overseas buying. The cost of achieving the emission reduction locally if the price is $30 per tonne is incurred on all the remaining emissions (336 million tonnes). That comes to $10.08 billion. This begs the question that since carbon dioxide is the same the world over why not buy all our emissions overseas? At $30 per tonne, 159 megatonnes of emissions costs $4.77 billion, which is far less costly than striving to do it with the mix of local ($10.08 billion) plus overseas ($2.385 billion) giving a total of $12.465 billion.

Even without a carbon tax, Australia's energy price regulator has reported an expected increase of 30 per cent in electricity prices over the next three years, largely due to higher 'poles and wires' costs. For New South Wales, the state's pricing tribunal has announced a 17 per cent electricity increase for next year, a third of which is for "green schemes".

Against this backdrop last month's Productivity Commission (PC) report, Carbon Emission Policies in Key Economies examined over 1,000 abatement reduction schemes across eight countries. These are overwhelmingly focused on electricity, and the PC converted them into carbon tax equivalents.

The PC's analysis illustrates that taxes are high and substantial abatement is taking place in the European Union (EU). In Germany and the UK carbon dioxide emission programs bring increases of 12-17 per cent in electricity prices (though the recent slump in the EU carbon price will reduce this considerably).

For Australia and New Zealand the emission control programs currently bring electricity price increases of 1-2 per cent, while in China, US, Japan and South Korea the effect is negligible. And Australia's main scheme, the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target, is only just gearing up to cost levels that by 2020 will be perhaps tenfold those of today.

Australia's trading rivals are among the 170-odd other countries which the PC did not examine. In fact, exporters of fuel and raw materials in Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, India and the Middle East face negligible carbon abatement costs and already have tax advantages over Australia's exporters. Carbon taxes figured prominently in the Canadian Liberal Party's platform in that country's recent election and the party suffered its worst defeat in a century.

Although no country has a carbon tax, the PC's material demonstrates that cap-and-trade market mechanisms offer cheaper means of bringing about abatement than specified regulatory measures like renewable programs. Thus Germany's costs under the European Union's cap-and-trade carbon tax were about $20 per tonne of CO2 (for shifting from coal to gas) but costs under specific measures requiring wind and solar use on average $137 per tonne.

Australia's schemes involving feed-in tariffs for small scale renewable systems come at a CO2 price of up to $425 per tonne. Wind farms cost $37-69 per tonne.

The PC estimates that a carbon tax set at $9 per tonne could replace all existing Australian measures and notes that a tax is less inefficient than 'direct action' approaches favoured by the Opposition.

However, the current abatement measures requiring renewables are also direct action approaches and the Government wants these to be retained alongside a carbon tax. Moreover, it is negotiating for another direct action proposal, involving closure of Victoria's Hazelwood power station. That closure could reduce emissions by 3 per cent but only in the unlikely event that the station's output is not replaced by output from other fossil fuel sources.

The Productivity Commission estimated the cost of Australian emission reduction programs at $473-694 million in terms of total subsidy equivalent. But this excludes direct government subsidies. The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) provides an "A to Z" of (Commonwealth) Government initiatives. Ranging from Advanced Electricity Storage Technologies to the World Bank Clean Technology Fund, these comprise 93 separate programs. DCCEE put Australia's budget expenditures on abatement measures totalled $1.069 billion in 2009/10. The Government's package budgets for $4.2 billion in 2014/15 in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and other supports for green energy and conservation.

In addition to excluding direct budgetary spending in estimating Australia's carbon tax rate, the PC also does not count the effects of a range of standards. A previous commission report had put the annual costs of greenhouse abatement measures embodied in the national five/six-star building standards at $3 billion a year.

Clearly Australia outlays much more than the $473-694 million the PC used to estimate Australia's greenhouse abatement costs. Our expenditures are much higher than those of our competitors and the carbon tax would further increase the baggage we have to carry.

The outcome would be a spiralling down of our living standards relative to those of other resource rich countries.

But the carbon tax is only the latest blow. To restore the nation's competitiveness, a future Coalition government must both revoke any carbon tax that is introduced and purge the economy-killing measures that have been gathering moss over the past few years.

To start this ball rolling, the O'Farrell Government is calling for the repeal of the Commonwealth's 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target. And the Nationals Senator Ron Boswell has made similar moves in the Coalition party room by seeking to have support for the target reviewed by a policy committee.

With his 'direct action' approach Tony Abbott expects to achieve the Government 5 per cent reduction in emissions but at a lower cost than a carbon tax involves. That is implausibly optimistic. But more significantly he has announced a review of policies for 2015, an action which foreshadows an unwinding of the green juggernaut.

Alan Moran is the Director, Deregulation at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Credits Trader: .Controversial climate sceptic Lord Monckton Set to Speak at National Press Club

CLIMATE sceptic Christopher Monckton has been offered a prime speaking slot at the National Press Club in Canberra on July 19, despite a spate of cancelled public appearances.

Lord Monckton - who recently accused Julia Gillard's climate adviser Ross Garnaut of “fascist” views - is set to debate the Australia's Institute's executive director, economist Richard Denniss.

Credits Trader: .Controversial climate sceptic Lord Monckton Set to Speak at National Press Club

Carbon Price Announcement on Sunday

AUSTRALIANS will learn how the proposed carbon tax will hit their back pockets when the federal government unveils its policy on pricing pollution on Sunday.

The announcement comes 136 days after Labor, the Australian Greens and two independent MPs first formed the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (MPCCC) to investigate carbon pricing.

"This weekend the Gillard Government plans to announce a price on pollution as the central element of a comprehensive policy to tackle climate change, cut pollution and drive the transformation of the Australian economy to a clean energy future," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a statement on Monday.

"After hearing a report on the discussions of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, Cabinet agreed tonight that sufficient progress had been made to allow an announcement date to be set for Sunday 10 July 2011."

Ms Gillard said talks between MPCCC members during recent weeks had been fruitful.

The committee comprises Ms Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, Greens senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne, and independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.

"While there will be additional discussions with the MPCCC this week, followed by further Cabinet consideration, it is expected that the remaining details will be finalised in these discussions ahead of Sunday's announcement," Ms Gillard said.

The scheme will start with a fixed price on carbon emissions on July 1, 2012, followed by an emissions trading scheme with a flexible price and an emissions target starting three years later.

The news comes after Ms Gillard revealed on Sunday that the carbon tax would not be placed on fuel for cars and light industrial vehicles.

The prime minister said Mr Windsor had been influential in that development, which blunts Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's argument that a carbon tax would increase petrol prices for motorists.

But Mr Abbott and other coalition MPs questioned the government in parliament on whether trucks, buses and boats would be exempt from the carbon tax, and how long the exemption would exist.

The impending announcement of the carbon policy was a great relief, Ms Milne said.

"Now at least we are in a position to be able to go out there and deliver on what we said we'd deliver at the time we signed the agreement with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, saying we would have a multi-party climate committee, that it would deliver a carbon price mechanism and that the emissions trading scheme would begin on July 1, 2012," Ms Milne said.

But the Greens senator would not reveal any details about the carbon price.

Ms Gillard said last week nine out of 10 households would receive tax cuts or rises in benefits, and the three million lowest paid households would be over-compensated for increases in their cost of living due to the carbon tax.

Opposition Environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the government's announcement of its carbon price policy at the start of the five week winter break from parliament was a "cynical move".

"It is deliberately running away from the parliament and it is deliberately running away from scrutiny," he told AAP.

Mr Hunt said the government would not give the full impact on the costs of living up to 2020 on Sunday.

"The only thing that matters is the full impact on electricity prices, gas prices, on grocery prices, on general cost of living between now and 2020 because each year, every year the carbon tax is going to go up and up and up."

Commenting before Ms Gillard's announcement, Mr Abbott said a coalition government would finance its $10.5 billion carbon emission reduction scheme from Budget savings and not from an imposed tax.

READ ON

Carbon tax relief to end at $150,000

JULIA Gillard has indicated that most families on incomes above $150,000 will miss out on compensation under the proposed carbon tax plan to be unveiled next month.

This comes as Tony Abbott today will promise tax cuts from a Coalition government when it scraps the carbon tax and accompanying compensation measures.

Ms Gillard has strongly defended the $150,000 figure, saying people earning that amount are not rich but ''they're a lot better off than the vast majority of Australian families''. She pointed out that the average household income was $68,000 and only one in 10 households earned more than $150,000.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has indicated carbon tax compensation will be cut-off at $150,000. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The Prime Minister, in comments to The Saturday Age, confirmed the compensation package would include income tax cuts and family payment increases, as well as increases in pensions and allowances.

''By providing tax cuts and increases in payments this way, we can take account of people's different family circumstances - whether they're on high or low incomes, whether they're bringing up kids or not,'' Ms Gillard said.

Mr Abbott's pledge of tax cuts is to counter the government's potentially damaging refrain that he will ''rip away'' people's compensation when he scraps the carbon tax.

By getting the promise out before the package is released, he aims to limit the government's ability to run a fear campaign on what people would lose under the Coalition. The opposition has said people won't need compensation if the carbon tax is gone.

In a speech to the Liberal federal council today, the Opposition Leader will say: ''At the next election, the Coalition will deliver tax cuts that are not just compensation. It will be a tax cut without a carbon tax. Our tax cuts will recognise the cost of living pressures that are hitting families and small business hard.

''Our tax cuts will be designed to restore people's hope, to reward harder work with higher pay.''

Mr Abbott will say voters will understand that a tax reduction to compensate for a tax increase, as planned by the government, ''is not a cut but a con''. He will say his tax cuts will be funded from ''prudent economies in government spending'' and ''policy-driven improvements in the productivity of our economy''.

Under the government's compensation package, the income threshold of $150,000 is not a precise cut-off point, but families earning more than that should not expect help for higher power bills and other costs flowing from a carbon tax.

The opposition criticised the budget for freezing the $150,000 income threshold on primary earners for eligibility for family tax benefit B, but this week allowed the legislation through Parliament.

Ms Gillard said that ''there are people in our community doing it much tougher'' than those on $150,000 and ''most of my attention is on looking after people who really need that extra bit of help''.

Pre-empting criticism about not providing compensation for those further up the income scale, Ms Gillard said: ''I want to make sure that ordinary working families can make a difference and help tackle climate change without having to make financial sacrifices along the way.

''It's people on lower incomes who spend the highest proportion of their income on energy. They are the people who most need financial help … That's why our assistance will be focused on pensioners, low-income earners and middle-income earners.''

Mr Abbott will say that his Coalition government would ''build on the Howard legacy of reducing personal income taxes for everyone and especially delivering a fair go for middle-income earners with children''.

Source http://www.smh.com.au

People's revolt looms on Australian carbon tax, Tony Abbott predicts

TONY Abbott has predicted a "people's revolt" over Julia Gillard's proposed carbon tax, saying the measure is a breach of faith with the Australian people and an assault on their standard of living.

The Prime Minister today announced Australia would have a carbon tax for three to five years before the introduction of a full emissions trading scheme.

But this afternoon Mr Abbott moved to suspend question time in parliament to censure Ms Gillard, saying she had broken a pre-election promise.

The Opposition leader said that under a $26-a-tonne carbon price, power bills would jump $300 a year and petrol prices would rise 6.5c a litre.

He said voters had believed Ms Gillard when she promised before the election that she would not introduce a carbon tax.

"Today's announcement is an utter betrayal of the Australia people," Mr Abbott said.

"We will fight this tax every second of every minute of every day of every of very month.

"I think there will be a people's revolt against this carbon tax and I don't think it will every happen because the Australian public will be so revolted by this breach of faith."

In a 2010 election-eve interview with The Australian, Ms Gillard said she would not introduce a carbon tax.

"I don't rule out the possibility of legislating a carbon pollution reduction scheme, a market-based mechanism,'' she said then. "I rule out a carbon tax.''

Moving the censure motion, Mr Abbott asked whether it was the “real Julia” who made the pledge in the first place.

“Nothing is more fake than making a promise to the Australian people before the election and breaking it after the election,” Mr Abbott said.

Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott only wanted to “wreck”, comparing him unfavourably to former prime minister John Howard.

"He wanted to be remembered for the things he created, not the things he destroyed,'' the prime minister said.

She said Australia could not be left behind as the world moved to a low-carbon future.

A price will be put on carbon from July next year under a framework agreed with the Greens and key independents.

The carbon price will apply to the energy sector, transport, industrial emissions and waste. It will not hit the agricultural sector.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet today left the door open for fuel to be included in the cap-and-trade system.

"That is not a settled issue at this point in time, but it is an issue the committee will consider," he said.

Mr Combet said the committee would consider phasing in emissions trading for different sections of the economy.

A review one year before the end of the fixed price period would consider if there were any reasons to delay moving to a cap-and-trade scheme.

The starting carbon price, the length of the fixed period and assistance measures for affected individuals and firms are still to be determined.

The Prime Minister said Australia had to put a price on carbon because "history teaches us that the countries and economies that prosper are those that get in and shape and manage the change".

"I'm determined to price carbon," she told reporters. "The time is right and the time is now."

Ms Gillard predicted a tough fight ahead with Mr Abbott, saying he would wage a sustained fear campaign.

"Can I make it very clear that in the debate that will ensue I am not intending to take a backwards step," she said.

Ms Gillard made the announcement at Parliament House flanked by the Greens, Mr Combet and key independent MPs.

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said the deal would not have occurred without the party's input.

"It's happening because we have shared power in Australia," she said.

"Majority governments would not have delivered this outcome. It is because the Greens are in balance of power working with the other parties to deliver not only the aspiration but the process to achieve it."

A climate change committee - comprising the government, Greens and independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott - has held four meetings since it was set up in September last year.

Ms Gillard said the government's emissions reduction target was unaltered at 5 per cent by 2020.

She said the system would not remain a simple carbon tax, as it was "hard wired" to shift to an emissions trading system.

Crossbenchers Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott will be crucial in securing a parliamentary agreement on a carbon price.

Mr Oakeshott endorsed the framework, declaring "I would vote for this tomorrow".

Mr Windsor was more circumspect, saying his support was not guaranteed.

"Please don't construe from my presence here that I will be supporting anything," he said.

He said there was "a whole range of unanswered questions" still to be answered.

Both independents welcomed the exclusion of agriculture from the framework agreement.

Australia to get carbon scheme by July 2012

Australia's minority Labor government has announced the country will have a carbon price by July 2012. The government has been working to reconstruct emissions trading policy after a dramatic failure under the former Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd.

Some say the date is ambitious and leaves a multi-party parliamentary committee in a race against time to answer a list of hard questions. And the opposition has accused the prime minister of breaking a promise not impose such a tax.

MOTTRAM: Releasing a framework that sets the first of July next year as a date for setting a carbon price for Australia, Julia Gillard said now was the right time because the climate was changing as more people than ever produce more carbon than ever, but also because lingering would be bad for Australia's economy.

GILLARD: History teaches us that the countries and the economies who prosper at times of historic change are those who get in and shape and manage the change.

MOTTRAM: But a carbon price remains highly contentious in Australia. And Julia Gillard, who promised during last year's election campaign that there would not be a carbon price in this term of a Labor government, has had to work within the reality of being a minority government, courting Greens who will shortly have the balance of power in the senate, and independents who decide whether or not government measures get through parliament's lower house.

The political reality was in evidence as Ms Gillard made her announcement, flanked not only by her climate change minister, but two Greens senators and two of the lower house's four independent MPs who are part of a multi party committee that's working on how to price carbon. The Greens deputy leader, Christine Milne, made the political point.

MILNE: And it's happening because we have shared power in Australia. Majority governments would not have delivered this outcome, it is because the Greens are in balance of power working with the other parties to deliver not only the aspiration but the process to achieve it.

MOTTRAM: And with the opposition already calling it a breach of faith and an expensive one for consumers, it claims, the prime minister later conceded the point.

Politics aside, the framework sets a key goal, the July 2012 start date for a carbon price to establish an Australian market for tradeable carbon permits. It would be a two stage process. For the first three to five years, the carbon price will be fixed. Then it will shift to a flexible price, set by the market, pending a review of conditions, domestic and international, a year before that transition.

The committee says it gives business and industry what it wants now, certainty that there will be price on pollution where polluting is currently free.

But the framework is a long way from answering some key and very hard questions. Australia's climate change minister is Greg Combet.

COMBET: You will see that there has been no discussion to date of the starting price for the carbon price mechanism, or of the proposed household assistance measures that might obtain, or of the proposed measures for assisting industry for the transition to a clean energy future at this point in time. That is detailed work that of course we will have ahead of us in the weeks and months ahead. But nonetheless, the mechanism that has been outlined here is a very important step forward.

MOTTRAM: The mechanism also excludes agriculture and the status of transport is still under consideration. But one of the most contentious elements of former prime minister Kevin Rudd's failed attempt to introduce an emissions trading scheme will also likely dog this continuing negotiation - how much compensation should go to what are called emissions intensive, trade exposed industries - that is, big polluting companies like the coal fired power sector and the aluminium industry, which the Greens would want to see given as little help as possible.

Greens leader Bob Brown flagged his view.

BROWN: We are open to looking at the impact on the trade exposed industries but there is quite a deal of world experience in this now and we'll be looking at that experience because it doesn't back up some of the alarmist projections we've heard in the past.

MOTTRAM: Some of those alarmist projections included one that an emissions trading scheme would return Australians to the days of candles and horses and carts. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, quickly flagged his continuing intense disagreement with a carbon price.

ABBOTT: We will fight this every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month. I don't believe it's going to happen because I think there will be a people's revolt - they will see this as an assault on their standard of living, which is exactly what it is.

MOTTRAM: So the government and its allies will be racing to embed a carbon trading scheme, aware that if they don't do so sooner rather than later, an election that delivered victory to Mr Abbott's side could see the scheme undone again. Ms Gillard can also anticipate a backlash from voters, if the claim that she's broken an election pledge not to have a carbon price takes hold.

Reporter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Julia Gillard, Australia prime minister; Christine Milne, deputy leader, Australian Greens Party; Greg Combet, Australian climate change minister; Bob Brown, leader, Australian Greens Party; Tony Abbott, Australian opposition leader

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